


DC Comics AU Ficlets

by Rubynye



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternatte Universe - Historical, Ficlet Collection, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-01-18
Updated: 2010-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 10:19:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A variety of AUs, mostly Batfamily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bat/Cat: Alice Wayne/Selina Kyle

**Author's Note:**

> To start with, a *different* sort of AU. Ms. Alice Wayne is borrowed with all love from [](http://sharpest-rose.livejournal.com/profile)[**sharpest_rose**](http://sharpest-rose.livejournal.com/).

Alice stares at the fingerprint match results. It can't be.

It must be. She designed the program herself, wrote the code herself, built the equipment herself. The odds of a false match are vanishingly small.

She shuts her eyes. A stupid, childish gesture, but she still hopes that when she opens them she won't see, blinking at her in clear font:

"KYLE, Selina."

Selina Kyle is not -- Alice almost thinks, "the jewel thief type," before she catches herself with a harsh little laugh. Selina wears jewels, sparingly, elegantly, when Alfred forces Alice to give yet another party and Selina sails in like a sleek cutter through a school of dinghies, when she shows up for squash in perfect whites with a tennis bracelet sparkling rakishly around her ankle, when she grins at Alice across yet another charity gala with a dimple and a wink. Selina is cool and witty, never a hair out of place, and she'd make Alice feel rumpled and ungainly if she didn't always make her smile.

She's not Catwoman, who gasped in Batwoman's ear last night, "Just between us girls," as Alice struggled to restrain her against a chain-link fence, "wouldn't you rather be in out of the rain than chasing a bad girl like me?"

Alice stares up at the screen, console cool plastic beneath her hands, remembering the grimy Gotham darkness and Catwoman twisting against her. "Wouldn't you rather be somewhere warm?" Catwoman's words were low and sleek, unfurling in Alice's ear as she slowed her wriggle to a writhe, dragging her breasts across Alice's until heat swelled in her skin, until it was like Batwoman's armor didn't cover her.

When she'd gasped, just once, Catwoman pressed away into the fence and pulled free. But Alice grabbed hard, and Catwoman had to twist her hand bonelessly, her glove peeling off in Alice's grip; the pause gave Alice the chance to lunge and tackle Catwoman's legs. Batwoman should have ordered Catwoman to surrender then, but her heart was still beating harder than a one-assailant struggle warranted, her throat fluttering enough to make her voice shake, so she just silently dragged the woman back towards her, listening to her curse, watching her twist, trying not to remember how she'd felt.

Catwoman wiggled around, rain-damp and slick, and Batwoman caught her. She shrugged, smiled and raised her free hand, saying, "OK, I give up, I surrender." Batwoman leaned in to pull her to her feet, and Catwoman smiled a little wider and kissed her, fingers pressing hard on her cheek.

The sensation was entirely shock, like a harder slap, like a blow, soft hot mouth and the taste of sweeter lipstick than Alice's own.

Alice gasped again, and again Catwoman twisted away, and this time her tail flickered through Batwoman's fingers and she escaped. But despite the rain and Gotham's dirty air the film held two full prints and a partial, and Alice left them running overnight as she tried to forget her failure in dreamless sleep, leaving the question for the morning.

Now she has her answer.


	2. Dick and Steph, from the First Lines Meme.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick/Steph as well.

For [](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/profile)[**petronelle**](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/), Batman needs a Robin. PG. 

 

The only good thing about being Batman is getting to work with Robin a lot. Dick knows he deserves everyone's resentment, and he _is_ honestly proud of Tim for becoming Nightwing, and he _shouldn't_ miss the Other Bruce, the Other Babs, the other _universe_ so badly.

And if he'd been here maybe his Bruce still would be. A raindrop rolls off his nose, as if to punctuate the thought.

These days, Tim looks at him the way Babs had right after she dumped him. Dick has no idea how Babs would look at him--- he hasn't actually seen her since he got back. Or heard _her_, just Oracle. Even Alfred is being so chilly liquid nitrogen should be condensing off him. The only person who's not still mad at Dick is---

"Still brooding, Bossman?" Steph --- _Robin_ \--- walks balance-beam style along the raised spine of the gargoyle, her hair still fluffy even in the rain, her cape lining bright around her. "O says there's a sitch at Wellington and Fifteenth, armed robbery, maybe hostages." She flips down, spinning in midair, and sticks the landing on the ledge. "C'mon, let's go break some heads."

"Let's go help people," Dick reminds her, because he's Batman.

She just grins, wide and bright even in the rain. "That too," she says, and leaps, and Dick watches her fall for a moment, flaring colors against the darkness, before he makes his own leap. At least he gets to work with Robin.

^*^

Bonus for [](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/profile)[**petronelle**](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/): Robin and her Batman. Probably a sequel to the second. R. 

"Whoa," Steph says. Dick snickers warmly over her forehead, and thrusts a little harder without shifting either of them an inch. He moves ways normal people can't, he's got joints other people don't. He _has_ to. Because Steph's sure she couldn't figure out, even if she weren't riding his fingers and hoarse from screaming and arched back over a _gargoyle_, how else he can hold her up _and_ keep himself from falling off-- off-- oh, she thinks, and maybe shouts, and she's coming again with Dick's bare fingers pushing inside her and his teeth just _perfectly_ denting her ear and his cape thick and black as the night over them. She grits her teeth and groans and squeezes until he breathes, until his chuckle opens out into a moan buzzing through her nibbled ear, until his gauntleted hand tightens just that last bit on her breast. She bucks, and _there_ and she comes again, thrashing and shaking between Dick's armored body and the rounded back of the gargoyle, a foot of stone between her and a fifty-foot drop.

Steph gasps and blinks, sparks flying across her vision, the only difference between open and closed eyes the rain on her lenses. Dick kisses her ear, and her cheek, and her jaw, somehow still pressing her just tightly enough against the gargoyle that she knows there's no chance she'll fall. Because Batman's got her. Because Dick's holding her up. After all, she stopped holding onto anything but him after the second time he kissed her.


	3. 'Beneath The Banner of the Bat"

The iron gates of Gotham before him, his army victorious and weary behind, Wayne the Bruce at last attained the city of his birthright, the city he had battled and bled to possess. Raising his longsword in one mighty fist, he struck its hilt upon the seam where the gates would part; the clang echoed out over the waiting troops, up to the low wet clouds spread across the dawn-lit sky. "Open!" he called, and the boom of his voice reverberated further than the blow of his hilt. "Open these gates to your prince now returned!" The echoes climbed to the crests of the battlements, before fading into the wind's breathing silence.

The Bruce drew his arm back and smote the gates again. "Open! In the Name of the Far-seeing Empress!" His deep-voiced command rippled around him where he sat like a statue kilted in blue-black-yellow plaid on a cloaked horse of bronze, through the breeze lifting the loosed hair of the silent maiden of battle who ever rode at his left, even out and up to the city's glittering spires.

"Open and admit the Banner of the Bat!" Wayne the Bruce dealt the gates a final blow; they groaned beneath his hand, and the long lines of prisoners trembled in their rough rope bonds. Riding back in the midst of the column rather than at the Bruce's right hand, Dic the Fair dropped his head and shook it, hiding his smile behind the fall of his long hair.

The gates groaned again, and creaked as they parted; they clanged wide to reveal Vizier Akins and the sullen-eyed councilors standing unmounted, bearing on a chased silver platter the keys to the city. The Bruce bowed to them, smiling as if unaccustomed to shaping his face to pleasantry, and reached out with one iron-gauntleted hand, and they raised the keys to his grasp and turned silently as one.

So rode Wayne the Bruce into the city of Gotham, returned from exile with fire and sword in the name of the Flame-Haired Empress, accompanied by his battle maid and his estranged protege, followed by his woad-painted warriors and long trains of war captives. So rode he, and the people of Gotham looked down silent from their towers and shivered at the sight of him, but when they looked upon Dic's smiling face they smiled in their turn.


	4. Steph/Tim Undercover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two Robins, no waiting.

Tim opens the door in one smooth motion, fast enough to flow and slow enough to be quiet, as the girl he was talking to keeps on talking. "--and I don't know where it goes from there, I really don't. But you can help me, right?"

Steph presses her fingers to her mouth and giggles soundlessly. "Hey!" the girl squawks, as Tim keeps turning, shutting the door. "Hey! Where'd you--" _Snick_, the door shuts, and Steph grabs Tim's hands and shoves her forehead against his shoulder, nearly spastic with silent laughter. Tim rests his lips on her ear, breathing the faintest hum possible. He'd never admit it, but he _loves_ the Bat-vanishing trick. And he does it awesomely.

Steph giggles harder for a few moments, before gulping down air, straightening up, and folding her arm through Tim's, the very picture of the nice preppy kids they're supposed to be. Well, Tim is one of those nice preppy jerks, but he isn't, because he's Robin.

And so is Steph.

She still gets such a rush whenever she remembers that.

Tim uses his freaky deductive powers to tell what she's thinking, and grins at her, though what he says is, "are all the daisies planted?"

Steph rolls her eyes. "What kind've'a question--" Tim gives her an eyebrow obviously snagged from Alfred. Steph stops, and rolls her eyes harder, but says, "Why yes, they are, and two left. I put one through Mr. Artirieri's buttonhole."

Tim's eyes widen. Steph doesn't giggle, but it's a near thing. When she was done bugging all the assigned cars and coat pockets, she had two left over; she was putting them away when the cute --- full of himself, but seriously cute--- Mr. Artirieri found "such a lovely young woman" as he put it, "in the hallway unescorted." Whatever, but it was fun to be simpered over for five minutes, and he's never gonna find the bug she worked between the seams of his jacket as she stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. And if he does it'll just fizzle and pop the next time bare fingers touch it.

Steph really loves Tim's style with the gadgets. It's efficient and cool and wicked, just like Tim.

She squeezes his arm, smiling with too many teeth for the part she's playing. "How about the tulips? Will they bloom brightly?"

Tim shakes his head and kisses the side of her head to hide his snicker. Yep, all the explosives are planted, too, and he's still neater than half the boys down there. Steph nuzzles his shoulder gently, careful of her makeup on his immaculate suit, and looks down the staircase to the main party. "Hope I can look scared," she whispers, smiling vacuously down at the rich idiots. Their parents are probably worse; Steph feels a tiny bit sorry for Bruce, and thinks about the party-wrecking he's planned, and giggles softly.

Tim pinches the inside of her arm. "Imagine what Batman will do to you if you don't," he murmurs sweetly in her ear, and leads her down the staircase.

Point. Steph makes her eyes as round as she can, as if oohing and aahing at the over-decorated room, and so she doesn't have far to go to look surprised when her foot hits the last stair and the first smoke bomb goes off.

 


	5. Bruce/Dick, "Collar and Cuffs"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Petra's idea.

There are only two times now when he feels real.

Most of the time, he wanders the empty mansion, brushing dusty shelves with his fingertips, moving priceless pieces of art a quarter-inch to the left like a ghost asking for attention. Thick carpets and rugs would keep his steps silent even if his training didn't, and there are no parties anymore, no dinners, no visitors over cocktails, just a biweekly team of housekeepers who aren't even a challenge to avoid, and the sunlight moving through the empty manor.

Sometimes his arms ache; the left forearm where the crash broke it, the right upper arm that Bitterton's goons smashed. It's not like the pains he's had before, while hurt or while healing; these aches are diffuse, hollow, as if they're a prelude to his being able to see through his hands or floating off the floor. He does katas and handstands and seems to be in midair, and not even the pain in his arms anchors him.

But when the sun sinks into another night, the bats squeak and chitter overhead, and he puts on the only clothes he has anymore, the only outfit that matters. His suit. He seals on the mask and he's Robin, with the freedom of Gotham's skies and made real by every kick, every punch, every thug who recoils fearfully. The only walls are below him, and he can smile at anyone he saves, and he has people to talk to, because Robin is real.

Then the stars fade, and they go home, and the suit comes off and Dick sleeps.

The other time when Dick feels real is at the other end of the day, often at sunset. Bruce Wayne has taken to going to work later and staying later too, since the loss of his valet and young ward in a tragic car accident. The housekeepers and the deliveries all come in the mornings, so Dick has all afternoon to get ready. Not that an outfit like this takes very long to put on.

However long it took, it would be worth it, to see the look on Bruce's face when he finds Dick naked except for the collar and the cuffs, at neck, wrist, and ankle. To see himself reflected in Bruce's eyes when he turns, and smiles. That's the other time Dick feels real, flesh and blood in three dimensions under Bruce's hands and mouth, and it's the most real he's ever felt.


	6. Steph & Dick, 'Evil Dick' Universe

"Hey, Boss?" Steph opens her eyes a little wider, like Cass showed her. It makes her look sweet and innocent, Cass said, which was really fucking funny.

Dick seems to think so, too. He glances over at her and smiles like he wants to laugh. But he doesn't, and that more than the pay (well that, and how bad he lets her hurt people, and how good he is at going down on a girl, and his fabulous ass) is why she works for him. "Yeah, Steph?"

"Can I ask you some advice?" Steph pulls the last rope tight -- the mook barely groans, and she lets herself feel a little proud at how thoroughly knocked out they all are -- and ties it off, nice and square. If Cooper really sent backup they'll be found before they lose any hands or feet. "It's..." She hunts around for the right words as she steps over the trussed-up thugs, and doesn't let her boss' pretty blue eyes distract her. "Well, Cass met this boy."

He looks concerned, for real even. "Trouble in paradise?"

"Oh, oh no, no, nothing like that." Steph hops down off the back of the now-empty truck, and bounces into the back of theirs because she can. Because she's showing off, and it's fun. "Me and Cass... I got jealous of her once." She climbs over the crates marked 'Florida Citrus' and up to truck's roof, and swings down into the cab. "She broke my fingers-- my left hand, these three--- and splinted them up better than a doctor, and kissed me afterwards. Because I'm her girl." Steph grins at the memory, and Dick grins at her, and behind them someone moans in pain. Some days are just great days. "But anyway, yeah. She met this boy, and introduced us. Shaved head, little bit of stubble, nice blue eyes but not as nice as yours." He laughs and starts the engine. "Skinny but really strong, strong enough to make me curious, y'know? Where'd he get so strong? And he's a computer type, I know you're looking for some."

Dick nods, and drives. Out of the alley, the sun's pretty bright, but there's a breeze. "So far so good."

"Yeah, so why do I need advice, right? I'm getting there." Steph rests her elbow on the window-frame. "Well, he's -- nice, but not too nice, y'know? I like him, and Cass likes him, but she says that sometimes he thinks 'someone else's thoughts'. We thought that was kinda weird, and might be trouble. So I thought I'd ask you about it."

"Hmm." Dick pulls into traffic smoothly. Some drivers, she'd be nervous to be in a truck full of explosives, but not the Bossman. "This boy have a name?"

"Alvin. Alvin Draper." Steph had more to say, but Dick looks at her, with that gonna-laugh expression. "You know him?"

"Yeah, I know him. You would've met him at the company picnic," Dick says, and Steph doesn't try to hit him for such a corny joke. Besides, she can't land a punch on him unless he lets her, just another reason she likes him. "He works for me, part time. I wouldn't mind if it were full, and actually... I think you girls might be able to help with that."

"I'll try, Boss." Dick grins, and Steph grins back. She really loves her job.


	7. Dick/Tim, Ancient Greece

"...son of Apollo, by a daughter of Dionysos." Tim glanced up from the fingers he counted on, looking at Dick through his eyelashes. Dick's lips were parted in astonishment, his eyebrows high enough to be veiled by the curls on his forehead, and Tim wondered for a moment if he'd gone too far.

Until Dick wrapped an arm round his ribs, embracing Tim so hard he lifted him from the street, shining with one of those liberally beautiful smiles he turns on all the world. "A _daughter of Dionysos_?" Dick added the other arm, walking-stick and all, and swung Tim around; Tim's sandal flew off, and someone up the snickered, and Tim's tunic was crushed and he could not care for any of it. " You know my bloodline better than I do!"

"Just to the last twelve generations." Reaching for Dick's shoulders, Tim had his hands up as far as the hard muscles of his forearms when Dick set him back on his feet. Tim breathed, and let go, and did not let himself gasp.

At least not till he looked up at Dick smiling down at him as he pulled his slipping cloak back up over his bared strong shoulder. "I am--- oh, Tim, I am beyond abashed. To think you learned this for me! When your blood is finer than mine!"

Tim's face burned so hot he had to look down, and fortunately kicked his sandal, which gave him a reason not to look up as he murmured, "I could never, ever believe so."

Dick laughed, bright and warm, and wrapped his arm around Tim's shoulder again, pulling Tim against his bare side. He ruffled Tim's hair, and Tim smiled at his feet,and kept smiling as Dick left his arm around him all the way down the street.


	8. "What if Dick had died in Infinite Crisis?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merfilly suggested, "Cass takes up his mantle."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Fanart](http://batfan-sarah.livejournal.com/13897.html) by the awesome Batfan_Sarah!

The first thing Tim does is blink.

The second is open his mouth. When he realizes he's about to say, "take it off," he shuts it again before he can.

Cass knows, of course. She tilts her head, smile fading. She doesn't deserve that. She's earned this suit, just like her first one. The blue streak in the black curves across her small breasts as if it were designed for her. She stands with her palms out, her hip slightly cocked; he blinks again, recognizing Steph's display pose, and his knees shake beneath him.

Tim's eyes hurt with the pressure of tears. Cass shifts her weight, following him with her eyes. Her smile is unfurling again, tight and pleased, and she cocks her hip a bit more, at him. Flirtatiously.

That, too, comes with this suit, and Tim's vision blurs and washes out. He smudges his hand across his eyes and coughs to test his voice, and croaks, "You look. You look great." Cass's smile widens further, teeth shining, and she deserves to hear it all. Tim swallows hard and continues, "Dick would be proud."

Cass's eyes glint before she narrows them tightly, a tear brimming out of the left. Cass never cries, even when she's shot, and Tim almost... he doesn't know what he feels, what to feel.

She folds her arms around him, slowly enough to dodge. He stands still for it, letting himself feel it as Cass presses the Nightwing suit to his chest as she hugs him, familiar whisper of sleek Nomex and too-thin armor over her breasts, until his mouth hurts with an unfamiliarly wide smile and he hugs her back just as tightly.


	9. Bart, Kon, and Tim, in an AU take on Infinite Crisis

"He still asleep?" Kon floats around the wall of hay bales Bart's built to disguise their nest or hideaway or hidden fortress. Well, it's not quite a hidden fortress, and Bart wishes for the approximately eight hundred seven thousandth time for his speed back, because Kon's already landed while he was thinking about that. With a muffled thud, actually, and he's still limping.

And Tim's still asleep, his head on Bart's thigh, his face sore with acid burns and tear-tracks, pale and vulnerable and hard to look at. Bart runs his fingers through Tim's hair, occasionally across his pulse, which is steady and slow. Maybe they should wake him up and make him eat something; maybe he's still asleep because if wakes up he'll remember Gotham is gone, nothing left but a smoking green crater.

Bart doesn't wake Tim up. He just keeps petting him, as he looks up at Kon, whose arms are full of packages and bottles, and who's frowning. He looks like Superman when he frowns, both the scary one from the future and the one now, who can also be scary. "I brought some supplies," Kon says as he puts his bundles down, and his expression is changing, and Bart wants time to watch it, to analyze it. To figure out how to make it better. But he doesn't have time, anymore, since Wally and Linda and Jay vanished and so did the Speed Force.

He doesn't have it anymore, and it hurts. So does his skin, everywhere the blanket isn't over him, because someone's messing with the weather and it feels like January in Minnesota rather than regular Kansas weather. "Thanks," Bart tells Kon, and Kon smiles, sideways, a little. And pulls open a bag of cookies, putting it under Bart's free hand.

Bart pops a cookie into his mouth, but without his speed he's not really hungry. With everything that's happened, he doesn't really taste it. And he's cold. He holds out his arm, and Kon's mouth stops smiling, but his eyes and eyebrows kinda do, as he settles in against Bart's side, much warmer than the blanket, and gently TK's Tim's legs across his, and Tim's eyes move under his eyelids, but he doesn't wake up.

They've sent distress calls to everyone they could, but everyone's busy, or hurt, or dead. Smallville is full of recovering heroes. Bart leans against Kon, listening to his heartbeat, and listens to the wind whirl above the roof of the barn, and waits.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Counterintelligence (The Tim Stalks Dick in Every Universe Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/87238) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account)




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